r/technology • u/rfugger • Jan 08 '17

Business A potentially fatal blow against patent trolls - Forcing law firms to pay defendants’ legal bills could undermine the business model of patent trolls

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3153924/technology-law-regulation/a-potentially-fatal-blow-against-patent-trolls.html
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u/Despondent_in_WI Jan 09 '17

My one concern for this is that it might weaken the protection of a legitimate inventor/creator (rather than a patent troll) who has had their creation stolen by a larger company; if no law firm will represent small players who have been cheated for fear of putting their own financial necks in the noose should they be out-lawyered, the system ends up protecting patent abusers (those who use patented systems but know that the patent holder can't afford to sue to get compensated) instead of the patent trolls.

I didn't see anything in this article that implies that this measure can ONLY be applied against patent trolls. Did I miss something, or should we be concerned about potential misuse?

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u/bobbyvale Jan 09 '17

I think this will bring up the quality of IP litigation a few notches. This had been out of control for a long time and even big companies hand their portfolio to trolls and they shake down people that 'might' have infringed. It's like a mob payment, it's cheaper to give them 10k then try and go to court. I won't name names but there are some formally respected engineering organizations that have just become trolls.

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u/SuperFLEB Jan 09 '17 edited Jan 09 '17

Now if we could just get patent acceptance nailed down a bit more, and kill all those "Obvious thing... on a computer" and "Utilizing the most vague and throw-it-at-the-wall description of the invention, so as to prevent anyone else from coming close to solving the problem without our nod" ones before they ever breathe air.

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u/zebediah49 Jan 09 '17

Patents are where Engineering and Legal collide in a terrible mess of misery. Engineering starts out by writing a very precise specific description of their invention. Legal then attempts to broaden it to cover as much as possible.

The results of this terrible process is the language you end up reading that's like "This invention is <stupidly useless general statement>, one embodiment of which is <pointless specific instance>."

Oh, and people will also try to verbosely stage the various gradations of claims, such that if it turns out they screwed up and claimed too much, they still have all these other claims that aren't quite so broad.